Analysing modern classical texts in performance is an interdisciplinary
activity which requires a re-thinking of methodological approaches. As classical studies have embraced reception studies,[2] interest in modern productions of Greek plays has grown and developed,
but a revised methodology is needed to ensure that the critical
approaches to the subject matter respond to the interdisciplinary
nature of performance analysis of classical texts. Two assumptions
underpin this paper: that practitioners’ intentions are held to
be important in the evaluation of the theatrical event; and that
those intentions can be recovered through a process of interviewing. Broadly speaking interviews take two forms, academic and journalistic,
and it is with respect to the latter that this paper is focused.[3]
My critical position is that journalistic interviews are subject
to a set of limitations that must be appreciated in order to evaluate
the information they contain. Furthermore, for information to
be used effectively by the theatre researcher, the intentions
that underpin the interview need to be understood as determining
factors. The aims of this paper are: to set journalistic interviews
within a wider methodology; to consider the value of interview
evidence and to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the interview
process through analysis of the relationship of intent (mutual
promotion) that characterises the interviewer/interviewee relationship.
An analysis of several examples of interviews is included to support
the critical position, namely, that the intentions of practitioners,
journalists and publishers combine to contribute to a preferred
reading which need not be accepted uncritically by the researcher.

A methodology of production analysis is difficult to determine.
The traditional methodological approach (rigorous desk study of
the text, material evidence and secondary criticism) has been
used to evaluate Greek dramatic texts within their production
environment, as works of literature in their own right and as
evidence of social, political, cultural values. However, this
is only a starting point for performance analysis which must also
include the shaping of the performance by the production team.
Therefore, in order to progress from a textual analysis to performance
text analysis, a more flexible research model is needed. As the
area of production analysis is subject to the transitory nature
of performance, establishing primary evidence on which to justify
a critical interpretation is problematic. Therefore, the study
of a live theatrical event needs to generate its own primary evidence
in order to provide a ‘text’ of the performance that can be analysed
and subjected to varying interpretations by other researchers.
Journalistic interviews can be considered as constituting primary
evidence that survives the production’s run: the communication
in print of the intentions underlying a production provides a
testament of intent against which, and in light of which, the
process of production analysis can begin.

The value of journalistic interviews is that they can provide
a medium by which practitioners can explain their intentions in
the performance. The unique feature of interviews (academic and
journalistic) is that they provide the opportunity for theatre
practitioners to elucidate the creative process. This is valuable
because, for effective performance analysis to take place, the
critic needs to be aware of the creative process through which
a theatrical production is given life.[4]
In performance analysis, the final performance as it appears on
stage is an end product, but the creative process by which a production
gets to the stage is as important as the performance itself.
The decisions of the production team (director and costume/lighting/set
designers) and the motivation of actors determined throughout
the rehearsal process are not usually documented; therefore, interviews
with the practitioners can fill that gap. Moreover, performance
analysis is often based on personal witness: the researcher watches
the production and then frames his/her analysis in response. However, the human eye cannot register everything that happens
on stage simultaneously, so aspects of the production can be missed.
Futhermore, memory is not infallible, so confusion can arise as
to the layout/use of the set, for example.[5] Because of the subjective nature of personal witness, researchers
and reviewers can interpret the production as a consequence of
personal interest/knowledge base. All these factors impinge on
the reliability of performance analysis, but, depending on the
range and scope of the interview, the responses of the practitioners
can provide another layer of evidence to enrich the critical response.

Journalistic interviews, however, are not a neutral method of
data collection as the media interview process is circumscribed
by a relationship of intent: a symbiotic relationship exists between
the media and the theatre that is predicated on the basis of mutual
promotion. The interview as a preview has distinct aims: it promotes
the production, the interviewee, the publication and, to a greater
or lesser extent, the interviewer. The promotion of the production
is achieved through the promotion of the practitioner; because
the act of being interviewed assumes superior knowledge on behalf
of the practitioner, the respondent is defined as ‘Elite’ and
is, therefore, invested with authority.[6]
In journalistic interviews, inside knowledge of the production
can present the practitioner as an authority on the text as well
as the production. What needs to be borne in mind, however,
is that the concept of authority aims at promoting the production
to the readers, who are positioned as a potential audience. The
practitioner, by being represented as an authority on the theatrical
event and the play text, advertises the production and ‘legitimises’
the production’s interpretation. In a positive sense, the practitioner’s
comments allow for a clear statement of intent, albeit influenced
by the role that he/she has in the production: an actor’s statement
of intent may be quite significantly different from a director’s.
The practitioner’s motive, however, may prevent a critical distance:
the promotion of the production’s interpretation of a play precludes
a discussion of variant readings of the text and other possible
theatrical approaches. Therefore, for the information gained
from a practitioner in a journalistic interview to be useful,
it needs to be understood as the presentation of the production’s
‘party line’, which need not be accepted uncritically by the researcher.

Journalistic interviews also promote the publication in which
they appear. The very process of interviewing is based on the
illusion of intimacy and privilege: the publication in which the
interview appears suggests to its target readership that, by reading
the interview, the reader gains a coveted access to a restricted
and charmed circle. This element of privilege serves to promote
the publication as it is through purchasing the newspaper/magazine
that this access is gained. Furthermore, the marketing of authority
and knowledge augments this prized access: by presenting the practitioner
as an authority, the publication suggests to its readership that,
as potential audience members, they will be in a greater position
of knowledge. Again this promotion is double edged. Positively,
journalists can gain admittance to theatrical circles that may
prove difficult to the independent researcher, but negatively,
the positioning of the practitioner as an authority does not promote
a critical approach, but uses an interactionalist method in order
to support and enhance rather than analyse the practitioner’s
responses.[7]

The
journalistic interview supports the concept of authority by fusing
the practitioner with the production, for example, actors and
their roles become inextricably linked; therefore, the text becomes
re-defined through the actor’s psyche, which supports and privileges
a modern context for ancient drama. The readership then participate
in this process as they are encouraged to accept the practitioner’s
interpretation of the play and understand the cultural and historical
context of the play in light of prevailing modern attitudes: simply,
the past is reinvented in light of the present through the practitioner’s
experience. According to David Silverman:

The
media aim to deliver us immediate ‘personal’ experience. Yet
what they (we) want is simple repetition of familiar tales. Perhaps
this is part of the post-modern condition. Maybe we feel people
are at the most authentic when they are, in effect, reproducing
a cultural script.[8]

With respect to the performance of ancient
drama, the inclusion of ancient texts into the modern theatrical
repertoire is usually justified on the basis that the Greek plays
speak to the universal human condition and are, therefore, relevant
to the modern world. The concept of relevance in journalistic
interviews, however, can be interpreted as the redefinition of
the ancient text in light of modern opinions. Therefore, the
practitioner’s appeal to a modern ‘cultural script’ also endorses
a ‘legitimate’ view of the text that is dependent on an assumed
continuity of meaning from the past to the present. Furthermore,
aiming to deliver “‘personal’ experience”, not only assumes continuity
of meaning, but also supports the merging of the actor with the
character or the director with the dramatic interpretation. Personal
experience implies insight, which, rightly or wrongly, suggests
authority. Consequently, once again, the merging of the practitioner
with his/her role coupled with suggested continuity of meaning
from past to present, legitimises the interview process by implying
that the interviewee has authoritative insight into the text.

The promotion of the publication and
the production also rests on the collusion of the interviewer.
Increasingly the interviewer’s role is not to take an objective
investigative stance, but to support the production and reinforce
the commerce between the publication and its market share. This
can be achieved in several ways. If the interview as published
expunges the voice of the interviewer, the interviewer still undertakes
an editing process that privileges information that is held to
be key to promoting the production and of interest to the target
readership. Similarly, if the voice of the interviewer is maintained,
then the critical position of the interviewer is interactionalist
rather than interrogative. That is, it is supportive of the production
and the market position of the publication. In essence, the danger
is that media interviews simply confirm rather than investigate.
Altheide, for example, considers that the development of journalist
interviewing has progressed in a manner that simply reinforces
the position of the interviewee:

Media logic has transformed journalistic interviewing
from what was primarily a “discovering” or “information gathering”
enterprise into an aspect of entertainment. As journalistic
practices and perspectives as well as entertainment formats
became more widely understood, the line separating journalists
from their interviewees began to fade. One consequence was
that interviews began to be set up to complement the interviewees’
own messages and emphasis.[9]

Journalistic interviews with theatre
practitioners could be considered as presenting a closed loop
of meaning so that the interview always remains safe by never
challenging expectations. Moreover, the mutual reinforcement
of the publication and the production means that there is no critical
voice, and the rush to validate can result in the trivialising
of the themes of the original text. Indeed, without a critical
voice, the published media interview runs the risk of becoming
a weak dramatic commentary that cynically flatters its readership
whilst engaging in a symbiotic promotion of the production and
publication.

Paul Taylor’s interview with Fiona Shaw and Jonathan Cake (Medea
and Jason in Deborah Warner’s Medea) is an example of the
interview process being used as a vehicle for the promotion of
the interviewer, the newspaper and the theatrical production.
The relationship of intent, in this instance, is explored through
an examination of the following journalistic codes and conventions:
the preferred reading established by the title, strap line and
image; the context that the interview is given in order to validate
the information and analysis contained in Taylor’s article; the
positioning of the audience in relation to the allusions and comparisons
drawn by the interviewer; the selection of information generated
by the interview schema and the interviewees’ responses. What
will be seen, is that the necessity for mutual promotion requires
the interviewees to be presented as authoritative with respect
to the original text and the interpretation of the production.
In this instance, authority is conveyed through merging the identity
of the actors with their characters. Furthermore, in this interview,
the presentation of the actors and characters as one suggests
continuity of meaning from the past to the present and assumes
that the themes and issues of Medea can be expressed using
celebrity culture as a modern referent. Continuity from the past
to the present also prepares for the interpretation of gender
conflict in the play and lays the groundwork for the assumption
that this production, in this day and age, ‘correctly’ responds
to the meaning of Euripides’ play.

The concept of authority in the interview
is achieved by merging the actors with their roles. In Taylor’s
interview this is established by the process of preferred reading
and by the fusion of the actors’ behaviour, appearance and skill
with the characters they play. Taylor’s article is dominated by
Jack Hill’s photograph of Shaw and Cake in what appears to be
the theatre’s Green Room. The central position of the photograph
eclipses the text and title; therefore, the text is read with
reference to the dominant image. The image itself uses a shallow
depth of field in order to focus the viewer’s gaze on the eyes
of Shaw, who gazes back at the viewer. The light in the photograph
then draws the eye to Cake, who, although occupying the same amount
of space as Shaw, is in less sharp focus and looks at Shaw rather
than at the viewer. The intimacy of Cake’s gaze at Shaw and his
Brando-like posture and clothes suggests a sexual aspect to their
interaction in the photograph and Shaw’s direct gaze at the viewer,
set within the normally restricted area of the Green Room, affords
the illusion of intimacy between audience and interviewees. This
reading of the image is supported by the unusual discussion of
the photograph in the text. Taylor, establishing the context
of the interview, writes:

Because
the director needs him for notes, I am to interview Cake separately,
but before that, I’m allowed to observe the two of them being
photographed for this piece. With her quick, depreciating Irish
wit, Shaw keeps up a steady flow of bantering mock-abashment at
the thought of being snapped alongside this gleaming hunk. (“Jonathan
is mythological in shape, isn’t he?” she said earlier.)

In this description, Taylor takes the
reader ‘behind the scenes’ of the interview, which supports the
theory that the reader is allowed access to the real world behind
the stage illusion: into a private space occupied by the theatre
celebrities. The idea of being ‘allowed to observe’ this ‘intimate’
moment further enhances the idea of being admitted (and thereby
privileged) to a private sphere. The illusion of intimacy also
embraces the suggestion of sexual frisson between the leading
actors. This is not to suggest that the article plays on a physical
affair, but that the evident crackling sexual flirtation lends
authority to Shaw and Cake’s performances as Medea and Jason,
which thereby promotes the production. Therefore, the authority
of the interview rests, in part, on the collision/separation of
the actors with/from their roles. Shaw and Cake’s comments as
actors about the production’s interpretation of the play are lent
authority based upon their understanding of the roles, but authority
is also suggested by fusing the identity of the actor with the
role. In the image this is achieved by presenting them as a couple,[10]
and in the preferred reading of title and image, Shaw is presented
as both actress and Medea.

The collision of actor and role is then
anchored as a premise in the ‘hook’ paragraph that opens the article.
Taylor states:

Having
witnessed Deborah Warner’s searching production in its first incarnation,
last summer, at the Abbey, Dublin, I’m aware that Shaw will be
seeing me directly after having put herself through the mother
and father of all mangles. So I suddenly feel about as sensitive
as someone waiting to shove a microphone in the face of a major
road-accident casualty.

Taylor’s anxiety could
be considered more than a rhetorical sensitivity. In establishing
the emotional impact on Shaw of performing Medea, Taylor prepares the groundwork for
the fusion of Shaw with Medea in order to lend authority to her
responses in the interview. Moreover, by establishing the ‘emotional
truth’ of Shaw’s interpretation of the character, Taylor also promotes the production: simply, the production is worth seeing because
of Shaw’s performance.

Taylor’s article is also noteworthy
as it fulfils a number of functions: interview, preview and review.
Taylor’s authority to interview Shaw and Cake is derived from his
prior witness of the production. As the production transferred
from the Abbey (Dublin) to the Queen’s (London), Taylor, having
seen the production at the Abbey, is able to present a critical
response to the production, whilst previewing, and thereby promoting,
the London production.[11]
Taylor, in providing the context for the interview, establishes
in the ‘hook’ paragraph that he has already seen the production
in Ireland, therefore, the interview is informed by his previous
critical response. This context supports the positive review in
the strap line that the production is ‘Deborah Warner’s sensational
version of Euripides’. Consequently, the production receives promotion
for the London debut and affirmation as a result of the previous
run, and the interviewer’s prior experience validates his role.

The promotion of the interviewer also
rests on the interviewer’s relationship with the reader. In this
instance Taylor operates as a mediator between the interviewees
and the reader, filtering, analysing and contextualising the interview
process. In order to undertake this role the interviewer positions
the reader by establishing a shared frame of reference, which is
understood by the reader, and in so doing, defines the target audience.
Taylor displays his knowledge in a series of comparisons which provide
modern counterparts in order to support the assumption that Medea
is a play of universal interest. The manner in which Taylor displays
his knowledge further contributes to the shaping and defining of
the target audience. Taylor defines the reader through assumptions
made about the reader’s geographic location, class, and literary/cultural
knowledge base. With respect to geographic location, Taylor assumes
that the reader is London-based and that the bank of the reader’s
theatrical experience is London-centric. This is evident when Taylor,
establishing Cake’s macho credentials to play Jason, alludes to
his previous performance:

Jonathan
Cake, the actor who recently wowed audiences with his strapping
frame and teasing sexual confidence in Tennessee Williams’s steamy,
tongue-in-cheek Baby Doll at the National Theatre.[12]

In this comment Taylor establishes his
own credentials, in that he displays a wider theatrical knowledge,
whilst characterising his readership as being able (geographically
and economically) to attend a London-based production. also identifies the class of the readership
as educated and refined. In his physical description of Cake he
implies a shared class-based knowledge:When
in comes to achieving his political ambitions, Medea’s asylum-seeking
husband has all the advantages of a glamorous Olympic hero, and
Cake, who is a Cambridge rugby Blue, is ideally cast to project
this allure.

Taylor assumes that his audience are
familiar with the colours awarded to the Cambridge
University rugby
team when they play Oxford University, which assumes and displays a class-based knowledge and re-inscribes the
prejudice that the ‘body beautiful’, class and a glorified view
of the classical past are all interrelated. Taylor’s observation works
on an assumption of shared values related to privilege and belief
in the pursuit of excellence (physical and intellectual) that finds
its counterpart in the mythologised view of the classical past.
Moreover, Taylorre-figures Jason as an Olympic hero which is reductive
of the complexity of Euripides’ characterisation. Taylor does this
in order to link the vision of the Olympic hero with his implied
definition of ideal masculinity and the ‘British elite’, which,
by association, according to Taylor, are those who participate in
the Oxford/Cambridge sporting/intellectual culture.Taylor also displays
his literary knowledge and invites his audience to participate in
a self-congratulatory game of understand the literary comparison.
Shaw becomes a ‘bony and brainily beautiful Virginia Woolf’, Cake
is a ‘fresh Steve Redgrave’, Medea and Jason become ‘Ted Hughes
and Sylvia Plath’, and, in order to show an awareness of contemporary
figures, Barbara and Boris Becker are presented as a modern comparison.
This process of comparisons develops the tripartite relationship
of intent: the publication is promoted by flattering the literary/cultural
knowledge of the target audience, the interviewer is promoted through
a display of belonging and the production is promoted by being associated
with the ‘glitterati’ of the literary/theatrical/celebrity worlds.

The purpose of this string of comparisons
to literary and public figures supports the assumption that Euripides’
Medea is relevant to the modern world. In the interview,
celebrity culture is considered to be an appropriate modern referent
for the relationship between Medea and Jason. The position is not
argued critically by Taylor, but is presented as an assumption
to be accepted. The interview schema begins with the question ‘why now?’ Taylor reports Shaw’s answer in the
following terms:

Partly,
reveals Shaw, because our current fame-obsessed culture makes
the world of drama peculiarly accessible to a modern audience.

And in order to develop this observation
Taylor quotes Shaw’s analysis of Jason and Medea’s relationship:
‘This kind of admiring, immodest love affair is what Hello! Magazine
is built on.’ What is not clear is whether or not the production
sought to utilise public interest in those in the public eye uncritically
as justification for the character-based focus of the production’s
interpretation. It is also possible, however, that the production
and interview aim at challenging the way in which the media plays
to and promotes voyeurism. In support of this, the reference to
Hello! in The Independent, because of the tabloid/broadsheet
polarity, could be considered as an attempt to challenge what is
presented in the strap-line as celebrity obsession. If this is
the case, then there is a significant irony to the marketing of
the production and the justification and presentation of the interview.
The production was marketed as Fiona Shaw’s Medea, which
established the production as a star vehicle and thereby promoted
the concept of the celebrity rather than challenging it.[13]
Furthermore, the presentation of the interview, prioritising Shaw
in the title and photograph, and merging the actor with the character
in order to validate the interview, promotes and utilises the principle
of the celebrity. Ultimately, whether or not it was the intention
of the interviewer or interviewees, a wider awareness of the production
and a critical response to the interview results in the conclusion
that the production and the interview, in effect, re-inscribe the
very position that they seek to deconstruct. The lack of clarity
in the interview, which leads to this conclusion, arises from the
fact that celebrity culture as a modern referent is accepted as
an assumption rather than being justified through critical argument,
therefore, the appropriateness of the referent is unclear.

In the interview, celebrity obsession
prepares for the discussion of gender and the production’s interpretation
of Medea and Jason’s relationship. Shaw and Taylor assert the modern
relevance of Euripides’ play by claiming that, in the present ‘post-feminist
society’, there exists the capability to appreciate that the faults
in the relationship, which precipitate the tragedy, are two-sided.
Medea’s role in the relationship is considered by Shaw to operate
as a trap for Jason:

“A
woman marries a man and does such favours for him that he can
never in good conscience leave her. I think already that is a
subconscious trap.” Shaw argues. And this new capacity to appreciate
the pressures on Jason is the other key reason why now is the
right moment for Medea.

Taylor’s willingness to accept this
interpretation could be considered as predicated on the flawed premise
that prevailing gender politics provide a more appropriate understanding
of the gender relations in the text than previous production environments.
The premise is flawed as it collapses history: the article does
not give consideration to the vastly different political/social
environment into which Medea was originally received. In
contrast, because Taylor’s article operates as a positive review (Abbey production)
and preview (London
production), the desire to validate the modernising impetus of the
performance in effect ignores variant readings of the text.Taylor’s acceptance and promotion of the gender
interpretation proffered by Shaw and Cake suggests a specific reading
of Euripides’ intentions, but what is presented, however, constitutes
a specific thematic interpretation that need not be accepted by
the reader uncritically.

Although Taylor does acknowledge that
‘Medea has been co-opted for many causes’, this critical position
is not invoked as an analytical premise for Warner’s interpretation.
Indeed, although Taylor notes the long-standing performance tradition,
he does not then consider this production’s interpretation in relation
to that performance tradition. In contrast, Warner’s interpretation
is ‘legitimised’ by Taylor through presenting her directorial strategy
as coming closer to the ‘spirit’ of the play:

Deborah
Warner is renowned for blasting through the encrusted gunk of
performance tradition and for being true to the spirit of a classic
play by holding the drama to the consequences of its own deepest
insights.

In this statement Taylor aims to promote
Warner’s production and endorse her interpretation by distancing
her production of Medea from previous ones: the implicit
assumption being that Warner’s interpretation and Shaw and Cake’s
responses are closer to the intentions of Euripides. The sub-text
of Euripides’ play is then assumed to be concerned with presenting
Medea and Jason as eternally locked together in mutual recrimination:
both culpable and at fault for the tragic events. The problem with
this interpretation is the ending of the play. Medea’s exit in
her grandfather Helios’ chariot is problematic for the mutually
culpable theory, so much so that Warner excised Medea’s divinely
assisted exit to Athens. Consequently, what is considered to be
getting back to the ‘spirit’ of the play, actually means changing
the play. It is possible to argue that changing the ending of the
play in order to privilege the production’s interpretation is not
problematic in itself. What is problematic, however, is the assertion
that to do so is more true to the ‘spirit’ of the play, rather than
the ‘spirit’ of the production. In his analysis, Taylor ignores
the issues around adapting a text to fit a theoretical interpretation,
and side steps the question of whether or not it is our modern fear
that the ending justifies the action that causes difficulty with
Euripides’ ending. Justification of an ending on the basis that
it is more appropriate to the ‘spirit’ of Euripides than the ending
Euripides did write exposes the problems in collapsing history and
eroding cultural difference. Forcing Euripides into the mould of
modern gender politics in order to appropriate his work for the
present does not distinguish Warner’s interpretation, but actually
places it firmly in the performance tradition of appropriation and
adaptation.

Taylor’s critical stance ultimately
accepts the production’s thematic interpretation and as a consequence
he does not maintain a critical distance in order to evaluate the
interviewees’ responses, but provides a context in order to promote
the production and in the process the publication and himself.
For the purposes of performance research, however, the interview
does have value as the interviewees’ responses provide corroborative
evidence for the psychological realism and modernising approach
of Warner’s production. Given that information about theatrical
productions is ephemeral, the interview provides more concrete evidence
of the production’s approach. In this interview, the fusing of
the actor with the role by the interviewer, and the interviewees’
internalising of characters’ motives, augments the process of character
inhabitation undertaken in the production. Furthermore, in the
assertion that Euripides’ play is relevant to the modern world,
the interview points towards the reason why a modern staging interpretation
was utilised. Although the critical position of the interview may
not present it as such, the definition of the sub-text of the play
in terms of the lengths to which obsessive desire can lead (in which
both parties are culpable), locates the play within a modern frame
of reference. The interview’s focus on Medea and Jason’s relationship,
to the exclusion of cultural and historical influences, results
from and evidences the production’s interpretation of the play in
light of prevailing gender politics, modern presentational modes
and a psychological interpretation of character. In simple terms,
the interview provides supporting textual evidence, albeit uncritically,
for the transitory theatrical event.

Al Senter’s interview with the actor
Greg Hicks (Dionysus, Teiresias, Servant, in Sir Peter Hall’s production
of the Bacchai at the Royal National Theatre, London, 2002) is
radically different from Taylor’s interview with the protagonists
of Warner’s Medea. Senter’s interview is presented as a
monologue, with the role of the interviewer expungedin order to present Hick’s responses as an uninterrupted
speech. For the purposes of performance research, however, the
interview can be examined with reference to the relationship of
intent established above.

In this interview, the relationship
of intent promotes the production through providing what appears
as unmediated access to the practitioner, thereby promoting Hicks
as an actor and, consequently, Hall’s production of the Bacchai.
Indeed, the primary strength of this interview as a source for theatre
research lies in the manner in which the interview allows for the
promotion of the production. Senter’s interview schema begins with
asking what attracts Hicks to Greek tragedy and to masked acting.
In the opening ‘hook’ paragraph and subsequent paragraph, Hicks
establishes that his attraction to Greek tragedy is,

-
because it is a world that never ceases to fascinate and expand
me. Doing these plays takes you into the deepest recesses of
your psyche and, from the start, I’ve always felt comfortable
in a mask – somehow you become more selfless and this helps you
grasp these cosmic emotions.

Here Hicks establishes his personal
view that Greek tragedy explores issues of consciousness, whilst
implicitly linking the performance of Greek tragedy with masked
acting. He undertakes a similar connection in the second paragraph:

I
like the formality of Greek drama. Yet when I put on a mask,
it is not only a piece of formal ritual – my self is diminished
and I love the anonymity which a mask brings me.

In these statements, Hicks connects
the emotional content of Greek tragedy and the form of the genre
with masked acting: his implicit assumption is that performance
of Greek tragedy is correctly expressed through masked acting.
Although there is no interviewer’s voice to contextualise and analyse
this position, the information cannot be accepted uncritically by
the theatre researcher. Hicks’ interpretation of Greek tragedy
is informed by his long-standing involvement with Hall and corresponds
to the production style developed by Hall as a consequence of directing
the Oresteia, The Oedipus Plays, Tantalus and
the Bacchai.[14]
Hicks’ assumption that acting in Greek tragedy requires masking
could be considered derived from Hall’s thesis that the emotion
and form of Greek tragedy demand the wearing of masks.[15]
Furthermore, their shared theoretical position may have emerged
as a consequence of the fact that all the mask work that Hicks has
undertaken has been under Hall’s direction and Hall has cast him
repeatedly in all his productions of Greek tragedy.[16]

Hick’s assumption that performing Greek
tragedy automatically requires a masked interpretation is, therefore,
a personal preference for Hall’s directorial approach and serves
to ‘legitimise’ Hall’s direction of the Bacchai, thereby
promoting the production. The view that Greek tragedy should automatically
be masked is, however, a controversial position. As there is no
interviewer’s voice to provide a critical context to Hicks’ assumption,
the theatre researcher needs to place the interview in a wider context.
Hall’s use of masks may now be accepted as his directorial style,
but his first masked venture (the Oresteia) polarised reviewers’
responses. In what became known as ‘the war of the masks’,[17]
without exception the reviewers of the Oresteia applauded
or railed against the use of masks.[18]
Moreover, in more recent times, the gulf that emerged between Barton
and Hall in the rehearsals of Tantalus was reportedly a consequence
of Hall’s decision to mask an essentially modern dramatic text,
albeit a text derived from the extant tragedies, fragments and Epic
Cycle. Therefore, what Hicks presents in the interview as the method
of performance required by the content and form Greek tragedy, constitutes
a personal opinion which results from a collaborative process informed
by Hall’s directorial predilection for utilising ancient stage conventions.

Although
Hicks’ position in the interview supports Hall’s direction, Hicks
also discusses his own interpretation of movement and choreography:

I’m
also passionate about working on stage and going right to the
limits of what my body can do. I study Japanese movement and
Brazilian martial art and that has helped me use my body as a
means of expression. A mere hand gesture can convey a mile of
meaning – even the tips of the fingers can be extraordinarily
eloquent.

As the interview operates on one level
as a preview, Hicks’ discussion of movement provides the readership
with a tantalising glimpse into what the audience can expect at
the production. The ‘exoticness’ of Hicks’ physical influences
could be considered provocative of the readership (and potential
audience members’) curiosity, so Hicks implicitly ‘sells’ the production.
He also privileges the potential audience by providing them with
information with which they can decode his performance. There is,
however, the implicit assumption that the potential audience will
understand and respond to the meaning of gesture derived from another
performance culture, and that the minutiae of meaning can be discerned.
This assumption establishes Hicks’ authority over his own performance
(he determines his own influences) and his authority in the interview
(his explanation informs the reader). Furthermore, to place Hicks’
movement in a wider context, Hall’s directorial style could be described
as presenting the text to the audience; stage choreography and interpretation
through physical movement have presented a challenge to Hall’s direction.
Indeed, Hall has been somewhat suspicious of physically based interpretations,
considering that movement detracts from the text.[19]
Consequently, Hick’s discussion of movement evidences his personal
contribution as an actor and the reader would be better positioned
to appreciate this if he/she had a wider knowledge of Hall and Hicks'
performance history.

The promotion of the production in the
interview is also achieved through the promotion of the practitioner
in a wider theatrical context. Senter’s interview schema progresses
from discussing Hicks’ response to Greek tragedy to his approach
to acting as a profession. The interview schema affords Hicks
the opportunity to display his dedication to the profession through
his process of preparation[20]
and his commitment to performing classical texts through privileging
plays that have a classical subject matter.[21]
The element of disclosure and revelation augments the sense of authority
in the interview: Hicks, by stressing his dedication to the genre
and the profession, establishes himself as specialised in the field,
therefore, his testament gains credibility. Furthermore, as the
interview operates as a preview to Hall’s Bacchai, Hicks’
credibility as an actor further promotes the production: the very
seriousness with which he takes his roles, and his experience and
preference of the genre, adds legitimacy and kudos to the production.
The unspoken subtext of the interview, however, could be considered
contradictory. The element of revelation assumes that the actor’s
psyche is of importance and value in understanding the performance.
The position is contradictory in that Hicks also establishes that
the attraction of masked acting is the anonymity the mask affords.
The contradiction lies in the fact that the interview presents the
practitioner as key to understanding meaning, yet the performance
style aims at subverting individual psychological expression in
order to achieve Hall’s aim to present the text to the audience.

The authority of the interview rests
on the assumption that the interview process informs the potential
audience, and, through presenting the interview as instructive,
the publication is promoted. The decision to present the interview
as a monologue could be considered as a rhetorical technique aimed
at persuading the reader of the authority of the interview. The
effacing of the interviewer’s voice suggests to the reader that
he/she is gaining unmediated access to the practitioner, therefore,
the assumption that the practitioner is key to understanding the
production is augmented. The selling point of the interview is
that, by presenting the interview as an ‘interior monologue’, the
publication provides the readership with a ‘truth’ that they would
not otherwise have access to, which places the potential audience
member in a greater position of knowledge. To put it simply, the
readership of What’s on in London are privileged as potential
audience members above those who have not read the publication,
as they can approach the production from a position of superior
knowledge. The concept of superior knowledge, however, works on
a set of assumptions. There is no critical voice in the interview,
so the information is assumed to be authoritative without question,
and the justification of authority rests on the implicit assumption
that the psychological processes of the actor are key to understanding
his performance. That the interview is of value positions the readership
as a potential audience drawn from a hermeneutic world (London-centric
and theatrically aware) in which the name of the practitioner, his
performance history and current undertaking has meaning. For the
interview to be of value beyond London’s theatre world and over
and above the uncritical acceptance of the reader, the content of
the interview needs to be placed in a wider critical context of
performance analysis in which the production as a whole is examined
in light of the style to which it subscribes and in relation to
other possible performance methods.

Classical scholars’ developing interest
in modern performance of classical texts requires debate and research
into new methodological approaches. Traditional methods of research,
rigorous study of the original text and secondary criticism juxtaposed
with performance analysis based on personal witness, do not constitute
an embracing methodology. The position of this article is that
an appreciation of the intentions of the practitioners is needed
in order to understand the performance aims of the production.
To this end, interviews with practitioners provide insight in to
the motivation, justification, and reasoning that underpin the approach
taken by the theatrical event. However, given that interviews with
practitioners can provide primary evidence for the theatrical event
as well as secondary evidence in the form of reviewers’ evaluation,
a revised critical apparatus needs to be put in place in order to
analyse the reliability of information generated by the interview
process.

What has been seen in this paper, is
that any critical apparatus needs to take account of the process
of mutual validation that takes place between the publication, interviewer,
theatrical production and interviewee. Positively, what the above
examples show is that journalistic interviews are a useful but problematic
source for production analysis. The interviews are useful in that
they do provide evidence for the respective productions’ general
interpretation. This information can then be used as a basis for
understanding the rationale behind the presentational modes, and,
placed within a wider theatrical context, can evidence approaches
to the different performance styles to which respective productions
subscribe (for example, naturalistic character inhabitation or distance
and abstraction from character). The interviews are also useful
as evidence of the critical tradition in the media; in particular
Taylor’s interview provides clear evidence for media critics’ continuing validation
of the performance of Greek tragedy predicated on a premise of universal
interest.

The interviews are problematic, however,
as the requirement of mutual promotion on behalf of the publication
and interviewer, and production and practitioner, coupled with the
use of an interactionalist method, result in collusion rather than
investigation. In the above interviews, because there is no critical
voice the interviewers do not analyse the information. For this
information to be used in support of performance analysis, the researcher
needs to consider the extent to which the information is formed
in response to the need to promote, and distinguish the data from
the advertisement. Furthermore, as is evident in both examples,
the increasing tendency to promote interest in the celebrity figure
and to collide the celebrity with his/her role (or the interpretation
of the production) implies that the interviewee has an authoritative
knowledge that is to be accepted rather than challenged. Therefore,
for the information generated from the newspaper interview to be
of value, it has to be treated as the presentation of a production’s
‘party line’ and, consequently, not an authoritative interpretation
of the original text as a performance text. In sum, in order to
use information from newspaper interviews, it is important for the
researcher to maintain a critical distance and not to acquiesce
in the closed loop of meaning created by interviewers and interviewees
as a consequence of the mutual need for promotion.

[2]
For a detailed study in reception criticism and classics see
L. Hardwick, . ‘Reception Studies’, Greece & Rome: New
Surveys in the Classics 33, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2003.

[3]
A companion study of the contribution that academic interviews
provide to classical performance research is forthcoming.

[4]
This point is established by the theatre director Peter Brook:
“I see nothing but good in a critic plunging into our lives,
meeting actors, talking, discussing, watching, intervening.”
P. Brook, The Empty Space, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books,
1972,p.37.

[5]
This point was established by Michael Walton in his analysis
of Katie Mitchell’s Oresteia (Royal National Theatre:
London, 1999) at the ‘Agamemnon in Performance Conference’ hosted
by The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University
of Oxford, September 2000.

[7]
An interactionalist method presents the participants as ‘peers’,
joining together in a conversation in which the aspect of social
encounter is maintained. In
journalistic interviews this can be used in order to preserve
the illusion of intimacy between journalist and respondent.
See further D.Silverman, Interpreting Qualitative Data: methods
for analysing talk, text and interaction, London, Sage,
2001, pp. 94-99.

[10]
The fusion of actor and character is evident in the title of
the photograph: “Fiona Shaw and Jonathan Cake: ‘Medea and Jason
are locked forever in mutual recrimination over an unspeakable
catastrophe’ ”. The close association of the actors’ names
with the characters’ names in order to merge practitioner with
character is further supported by the direct quotation from
Shaw.

[11]
That the interview operates as a preview as well as a review
is evident from the strap line: “It’s a story of power, glamour,
betrayal and atrocity. On the eve of this West End opening
of Deborah Warner’s sensational version of Euripides, Fiona
Shaw and Jonathan Cake tell Paul Taylor why
this ancient Greek tragedy is so suitable for our celebrity-obsessed
culture” (publication’s emphasis)

[12]
Taylor undertakes the same process of comparison when discussing
Deborah Warner’s theatrical style through her production of
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

[14]
Greg Hicks played Orestes in Hall’s Oresteia (Royal National
Theatre, London, 1980-1), Tiresias in Hall’s Oedipus Rex
(Royal National Theatre, London, 1996), Agamemnon in Hall’s
production of John Barton’s Tantalus (British premiere
Lowry Centre, Salford, 2000). For a full performance history
see Hicks’ web site at: http://members.aol.com/actorsite2/gh/

[15]
Hall has established his theoretical position that the emotion
and form of Greek tragedy necessitate mask use in a variety
of sources. See, for example Exposed by the Mask, London:
Oberon Books, 2000, pp. 22-30 republished in part as ‘The Mask
In Practice’, Bacchai Programme, London: Royal National
Theatre, 2002.

[16]
That Hicks’ theory of mask use emerged from working with Hall
on the Oresteia (the earliest collaboration) is established
in an unpublished interview with myself in which he asserts:
“it was the first mask venture that I had ever done in my life”.
Interview with Greg Hicks (Orestes and Chorus Member in Peter
Hall’s Oresteia) held at the Barbican Theatre, London
on Tuesday 15 July 2001.

[17]
See M. Shulman, The Standard, 30 November 1981, p.22
op. cit. “The Oresteia, by Aeschylus at
the Olivier is likely to become known as the War of the Masks.”

[18]
For example, J. Barber, Daily Telegraph, 30 November
1981, M. Billington, Guardian, 30 November 1981, F. King,
The Sunday Telegraph, 6 December 1982, K. Hurren, What’s
on in London, 11 December 1981, all of which questioned
Hall’s use of the mask. In contrast, approval was expressed
by J. Fenton, The Sunday Times, 6 December 1981, and
R. Christianson, Chicago Tribune, 17 January 1982.

[19]
With respect to his approach to choral movement, Hall commented,
“The one thing I do know about dance is that if you dance and
speak you might as well not bother to speak, because we all
watch the dance. I have been experimenting in the Bacchai
with very slow movement and very quick speech so that the movement
does not detract from the words. But I think that we didn’t
solve the movement in the Oresteia at all.” Unpublished
interview with Sir Peter Hall held at the Royal National Theatre
(London) 30th May 2002.

[20]
Hicks stresses his dedication to the profession and to his roles:
“I do think of acting as a kind of calling – I’m not one of
those actors who can breeze in 30 minutes before the show….
I come in two or two and a half hours before the show and sit
in my dressing room and prepare myself.”

[21]
With respect to Barton’s Tantalus, Hicks says, “Tantalus
came and went before we eventually got the green light on one
project, and I remember chucking the script into a skip in Clapham
out of sheer frustration when the project collapsed again –
after I had made myself available by turning down a Stratford
season.” Although Tantalus could be considered as a modern
play, implicit in Hicks’ comment is an opinion that the classical
subject matter of Tantalus places Barton’s text within
the canon of classical drama.